Businesses involved in the design and testing of technical equipment and systems often have a need to generate and store nondestructive evaluation (NDE) test data. Such NDE data can be useful in cases where a defect is detected in a part during the part's service life, or in the event of failure of the part during service. Such NDE test data can include digital images, such as digital images provided by x-ray, ultrasound, or eddy current imaging systems. Such test data can be obtained from a mechanical component which is subjected to cyclic loading in service, and such test data can be useful in detecting cracks or other flaws in the component caused by the cyclic loading. NDE data is also used to detect material defects in newly manufactured components which have not gone into service.
Commercial businesses and government regulators have been interested in establishing a universal NDE data archiving system for several years. Currently, there is no effective means for archiving and retrieving such data from different sources. Instead, numerous, often incompatible “island archives” of NDE data are created by different sources. As a result, data cannot be readily shared between vendors and customers or between suppliers and government agencies. Further, such data cannot be easily incorporated into standard word processing and presentation documents. Typically, when incompatible data is to be shared, a software tool such as a custom file format converter must be developed to enable transfer of data from “party A” to “party B”. Unfortunately, this may not permit the same data to be transferred from “party A” to “party C”, so that a custom file format converter is required for each such transfer.
Certain test image data generated in the medical arts is formatted in a what is referred to as the DICOM standard. The DICOM format describes a standardized method of assembling medical image data along with all related pertinent data regarding the patient (age, sex, SSN), study (Date, diagnositic system used, part of the body imaged), physician name, diagnostic system (type, imaging parameters, x-ray KV) etc. DICOM integrates all types of information from a diagnositic study into a single digital entity which can be stored, transmitted via computer networks, and displayed or printed using any DICOM compatible display system or printer. DICOM has provisions for dealing with all currently available medical image types.
An introduction to the Digital Image Communication in Medicine (DICOM) standard can be found at the following website: http://www.sbis.epm.br/pepcdrom/apresent/pimagmed/intro.html. A complete copy of the DICOM standard is available at http://idt.net/˜dclunie/dicom-status/status.html.